


There After

by Tashilover



Series: On a Clear Day [2]
Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Attempted Rape, Rape Recovery, Slut Shaming, discrimination male rape victims face
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-08
Updated: 2015-07-11
Packaged: 2018-03-16 21:07:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3502793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tashilover/pseuds/Tashilover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The greater the good, the harder the blow.</p><p> </p><p>Sequel to 'And Then.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Martin made sure the door to his room was locked. He closed the blinds on his window, and even went so far to turn pictures of his family around to face the wall.

He felt so damn foolish. This wasn't something to be ashamed of. This wasn't something he should hide from, not to the extreme he was going. And yet he checked the lock at his door three more times before he sat down at the end of his bed, the furtherest corner away from the door, and brought out his phone.

He dialed in and waited for the other person on the line to pick up.

_"Hello, this is the Rape Crisis Center, Abigail speaking."_

Martin has read extensively about these hotlines. All calls were confidential, and he didn't have to divulge any information about himself if he didn't want to. For a few seconds, he held the phone up to his ear, willing himself to talk. He was silent for so long, Abigail asked softly, _"Are you still there?"_

Martin hung up.

He immediately called again, this time determined to talk.

 _"Hello,"_ said the woman on the other line. " _This is the Rape Crisis Center. This is Melissa."_

Martin didn't expect to get a different helper. That was okay. He closed his eyes and willed himself to speak. "Hi," he finally said. "I'm-"

Melissa cut him off. _**"Sir."**_

The icy tone made Martin choke on his next words. He shut up.

" _Sir,"_ she said again, no less cold. _"This is a rape crisis center. Not a pick-up line."_

She hung up.

The website said these hotlines would not discriminate against religion, ethnicity _or_ gender. Maybe he just got the wrong helper. Martin should call again, and hopefully this time he'll get someone who won't assume of his intentions. Maybe he'll get Abigail again. She sounded gentle and kind.

Martin set the phone down next to him. He didn't pick it back up.


	2. Chapter 2

There were some days Martin didn't even think about it.

It always surprised him when a week would pass and he would be sitting down, eating dinner, and then he would think to himself, "Oh yeah, that happened." Sometimes he got upset, but most of the time he was able to push it out of his mind, and focused on something else.

But on some days, it demanded to be felt.

One morning last month when Martin was getting ready for work, he slipped on his pilot jacket as he watched himself in the mirror. He did this every time he dressed, admiring the epaulettes on his arm, making sure his wonderful navy blue jacket was free of lent and dust. He didn't know what made that day so different from the hundreds of others days.

Just as he slipped on the jacket, his stomach suddenly twisted and his breathing sped up. At first he thought he was sick, coming down with a touch of the flu.

He swore he felt **_hands_** on him. Hands on his back, his neck, touching him, their fingers digging in. In sheer blind panic, Martin ripped off his beloved jacket and tossed it as far away from him. He found himself curled up in the space between the wall and his bed, crying and hyperventilating and befuddled as _shit_ on why he was acting this way. It would still take him another twenty minutes to coax himself out of the space, to get up and dust off his jacket.

Thankfully, those days were getting more and more rare. He was glad nothing like that happened while flying. He didn't know what would happen if he got a panic attack during lift-off. If he killed someone because of his... _over reaction,_ he would never forgive himself.

Besides that and the occasional nightmare, life was normal.

And it was. As supportive and wonderful Carolyn and Douglas were, Martin was afraid when they looked at him, all they would see was the rotting albatross hanging off his neck, branding him as the pathetic fool he was.

Douglas only treated him slightly differently. Douglas still played the same word games, still teased Martin about his hat. There was a moment a few months back when they were both leaving the cockpit after landing, and Douglas accidentally tripped.

He stumbled forward, catching Martin with him in his fall, pushing both of them against the closed cockpit door. Douglas had thrown his arm out, slapping his hand against the wall to keep from falling further.

In that moment, Martin didn't see Douglas. He saw an unknown _man_ looming right over him, trapping him.

"No!" Martin had yelled out in anguish, pushing Douglas back fiercely, one hand groping the door, searching desperately for the handle. "No! No! No! No!"

"Martin, it's me! It's me!"

Douglas made the mistake by trying to catch Martin's flailing arms, which only spurred him to panic even more. Finally, Douglas backed away, giving Martin space. The reaction was immediate, and Martin visibly settled down, lowering his arms away from a defensive pose.

"You're okay..." Douglas said softly. His hands were shaking as he said this. "You're safe..."

After that, Douglas always waited till Martin left the cockpit first before even getting up from his chair.

Carolyn treated him no differently. She still dismissed Martin's complaints about certain procedures, still bossed him around gleefully. She also made sure Martin was never alone with a client, nor was he required to meet with them prior to the flight.

Arthur still had no idea what had happened months ago and Martin wanted to keep it that way.

Overall, life was okay. Besides a few hiccups here and there, it felt like his world had finally got back to what he considered normal.

Then one morning when he checked the news on his tablet, his entire world came crashing down around him.


	3. Chapter 3

The very first thing he did was call Carolyn.

He struggled to unlock his phone, to scroll down to her name and hit the call button. His hands were trembling, threatening to drop his phone upon the floor. By the time Carolyn answered, he was sweating so badly, the front of his shirt was already damp.

"Carolyn," Martin gasped, trying to go for relaxed and failed. "Have you seen the news?"

Carolyn paused. " _I have._ "

"Should... should I do something?"

_"You don't have to do something if you don't want to."_

That was not the answer he was looking for. He didn't realize how much he just wanted her to make this decision for him, to tell him what to do. Martin kept staring at his tablet, reading the bolded headline over and over again. He has never felt less like a man than at that moment.

 _"Martin?"_ Carolyn said. _"Will I still expect you later today?"_

He took a breath. Held it. "Yes," he said in a rush. "I will be there. I have to go, I... I need to call someone else."

 _"Alright then. I'll see you this afternoon."_ She then hung up.

Martin put his phone down and touched his tablet when the light dimmed, threatening to turn off. The bolded text came back up again.

**WOMAN SPEAKS OUT: "MULTI-MILLIONAIRE ANTONIO CARTEL RAPED ME." FOUR OTHERS HAVE STEPPED FORWARD.**

To protect the identity of the victims, the article omitted their names entirely. A waitress from Liverpool said Mr. Cartel had followed her into the employee toilets where he proceeded to assault her. "It was a slow day," she said to police. "He was the only customer in the restaurant." The assault happened a month ago, but information about it has been kept from public eye until recently when four other women have emerged, saying the same thing. One of the rapes happened seven years ago.

Though the article wasn't as high profile as the recent presidential speech or the current celebrity scandal, it still shared a space on the front page of a major news site.

The piece itself wasn't very long, and the website filled the rest of the space with advertisements and links to other articles about Mr. Cartel. Martin kept scrolling down rapidly, hoping to see if there was a video link, only to fall right into the comment section.

_'Stupid women. Always yelling rape when something doesn't go their way. Grow up.'_

_'Those poor girls! I hope someone stabs that jerk in the ballz!!!!!'_

_'lololol this makes me laugh. =D'_

_'he probably paid them and now they think they can get more money out of them. dumb sluts.'_

_'they enjoyed it. all woemn do, and those who say differently are LYING!!!!'_

Martin only scanned the comments for a quick second. With a noise of disgust, he clicked out of the window page, and turned off his tablet. He grabbed his phone again, this time breathing so hard he feared he would hyperventilate. He needed to talk to someone right now.

_"Hello, this is Marissa-"_

"Marissa, please, please don't hang up on me just because I'm a man. Please, please..."

_"Oh, oh, I won't, sir. Shhhh... I promise I won't. I'll stay on the line as long as you need me to."_

Her voice was so soft, so gentle. Martin sunk to the floor, his face scrunching up as tears gathered in his eyes. The woman on the line sounded so young too. Martin was going to be thirty-seven in a few months and here he was, crying like a child to someone who was barely in her twenties.

"Have you seen the news?" He asked. His voice was thick with tears. "About Antonio Cartel?"

_"Yes, sir, I have."_

"He-he-he-he-he... I was at work and he... He... I... He... I... I..."

His throat was clicking, struggling to get the words out. The woman was probably getting impatient, wondering if he was ever going to talk again cause she had better things to do than listen to some sad fuck crying over the phone like a little _bitch_ -

 _"Take your time, sir,"_ she said. _"Take as much time as you need, I'm not going anywhere."_

He had to pull the phone away from his ear when she said that. He wanted control, he wanted to stop crying before talking again. She said to take his time, but as every second passed, he felt his own patience wearing down. He didn't want to seem rude.

It still took five minutes for him to calm down enough to feel confident he could speak again without sobbing. He brought the phone back up. "Still there?"

_"Yes, sir."_

"He raped me," Martin breathed out. "I... I was going to the loo when he attacked me."

_"Was this recent? Do you need to go to the hospital?"_

"No, this happened months ago. I think he used a condom. I don't know."

_"Have you spoken to the police?"_

"No..." More tears threatened to fall. "I... didn't really think... I don't know why I didn't. I just wanted it to be over, to forget about it. Should I have gone to the police?"

_"You did what you believed you needed to do, sir. If you didn't want to go, then that was your choice."_

"Yeah, but... I could have stopped him! Now it looks like he has raped five other women! I could have prevented this!"

_"Sir, you have no way of knowing that. Don't hold yourself responsible for something you were unaware of."_

Then why did he feel so guilty? If someone knew their friend was drunk and allowed them to drive, wouldn't that person be responsible if their friend killed someone? If Martin knew someone was going to shoot up a public area, wasn't he under obligation to report the shooter? What made this so different?

"I-I have to go," Martin said. "I have work. I'm going to be late."

 _"Yes, sir,"_ said Marissa. _"If you want to talk to me again, you can always ask me by name. I do the morning shifts."_

That was nice to know. "Thank you."

He hung up.


	4. Chapter 4

VMartin said nothing about Mr. Cartel when he got into work that day. Besides confirming a few orders with ATC, Martin barely spoke at all.

Less than a year ago Douglas would have found a way to make Martin speak. Either through a word game or simply teasing him until Martin couldn't stand it any longer. As much as Martin complained when Douglas did this, it felt nice to have someone who wanted your attention.

Martin was never that popular in school and since graduating, his lifestyle didn't afford him many free days for the friends he was still in contact with. Despite their age gap, their differences in experiences and flying style, having conversations with Douglas always made Martin feel mature. The fact he could command the attention of this self-affirmed Sky God was incredible.

Today, Douglas spoke very little as well. Maybe he saw the news this morning about Mr. Cartel, maybe he knew this was a _bad day_ for Martin. Martin was both grateful towards him for his consideration and hated it at the same time.

This was never going to go away, was it? No matter how much time had passed, no matter if it was never talked about again, the assault was always going to take precedent. It's been nearly ten months and this SHIT still held power.

When they landed, Martin got up to leave the cockpit. Douglas sat in his chair, waiting for him to leave, when he suddenly spoke up. "I will see you tomorrow, Martin?"

Martin turned back to him, a little confused. Never once in their years of flying together has Douglas ever said this to him. It was also the way he said it. Like he was fishing for something.

"Yes, of course," Martin said, bemused. When he turned to open the door, he got it. "Oh, no! No, no, no, no, Douglas-! I'm not... I'm not going to hurt myself."

"Christ," Douglas hissed. He swiveled around in his chair. "I wasn't implying you were. I mean, that's good to know, but I was... with all that's been happening, I didn't think you were happy here anymore. I was afraid you would quit MJN."

Martin sat back down in his chair to face him properly. "I can honestly say I have no intentions of quitting. You know how much I love being Captain. It's all I've ever wanted. Did... did you really believe I would go?"

"I wouldn't blame you if you did. Do... do you feel unsafe here, Martin?"

Martin thought about it. "Maybe a little. I still use the same toilet that I was attacked in, except now I check and double-check to see if the door is locked. I'm relieved that Carolyn doesn't require me to meet with the passengers, and yet I feel so unprofessional for avoiding them. And... and I hate the fact that you have to be so careful around me. I hate that even now, I want that cockpit door open because I want a way out."

Immediately after saying that, Douglas got up, opened the cockpit door and sat back down. No judgement, no hesitation in his actions.

Martin gently smiled. "I am not afraid of you, Douglas. I'm really, really glad you're here. I want to stay. I'm going to stay. Mr. Cartel stole so much from me, I don't want him tainting this."

They lulled into silence for a few seconds.

"Do..." Martin started, licking his lips. "Do you think I should go after him?"

"That's not my decision to make."

Martin wanted to scream. He was so sick and tired of people saying that to him. Yes, he knew it was his choice to make, but that's not what he's asking. "I just want to hear your opinion."

"If... if it were me," Douglas said. "I wouldn't do it. I have my daughter to consider, my ex-wives, my reputation... I'm too old to fight this. I only got another twenty, maybe thirty years in me, and I don't want to spend them fighting for a conviction that might never come."

Martin bowed his head.

" _Were_ you thinking about going after him?"

"I don't know," Martin admitted. "And it's not because I think I can get Mr. Cartel arrested or convicted. I've read the statistics, I know my chances, but... I feel if I don't do this, I might regret it for the rest of my _life._ "

It wasn't bravery or a sense of righteousness that drove him. It was the thought of being eighty years old and still thinking back, wondering if he'd done the right thing.

Even if he failed, at least he would be comforted by the fact he tried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unfortunately for now, this fic is going on a hiatus.
> 
> For the past few months with more and more victims coming out to speak against Bill Cosby, I am uncomfortable with the way this fic has similar parallels. I just want my readers to know I have NOT drawn inspiration from that situation, and yet I cannot deny that with every update, it looks like I have. This makes me so uncomfortable.
> 
> I don't know when I'll be back for this fic, but I do hope is soon.

**Author's Note:**

> This scene has been described by real life male rape victims.


End file.
